Quantum: The Complete Series

Chapter 3: The Monument

A dried landscape lay before him, a wasteland of dust and phosphorus scattered in all directions for as far as the eye can see. He walked across some small stones lying around and walked down a steep slope to the bottom of a dried up river bed where fragments of Magnetite and Hematite were found on the sandy floor. Another person came aside the first person and picked up their own handful of the shiny material. They said something through a radio, then walked back towards a bright red and white ship to unload their findings into storage compartments. The person started to wander off down the path of the riverbed, in search for more of the shining material and found large heaps of it over a two kilometer distance all the while, collecting most of it and storing as much as he could carry into a large satchel he was carrying at his side. Over the course of the two kilometers, he found that he seemed lost and out of range for the radio signals to catch onto someone else's radio. All that he could hear was static, so he started walking in a single direction for miles before coming upon two tall towers of phosphorus. They didn't seem natural with the flat landscape all around with minor rolling hills being the only formations around. He walked up to one of the towers and ran his hand along it, causing some of the yellow dust to fall off of the tower, revealing a metallic-like structure underneath the surface of the powder. He took a few steps back so he could see the whole thing and time seemed to speed up, day and night going by every few seconds. It started to unnerve and confuse him as he started to turn to leave, but a sound coming from the towers stopped him. Turning to face the towers again, he saw that they were revealed to be long, metallic beams that had curved to form an arch that made the structure look extremely ominous. There was no phosphorus left on either of the towers, just the curving beams. Then, just as suddenly as the scenery had changed for him, the arch lit up and the structure was revealed to be a portal. He took a few more steps back before mustering the courage to approach the portal. When he got within ten feet of the light, he saw another figure coming towards the portal on the other side. He froze as the creature looked very familiar to him. It wore armor made of pure darkness, with all light not being able to be reflected off of it. It also held a large sword that had two points. The creature made eye contact and stared for a few moments before coming through the portal at incredible speeds and stabbed its blade deep into the person's chest.

Mario: *Gasp!*

Mario sat up from his small pad on the ground with a cold sweat and panting. He  just had the same dream he had the previous night, about seeing some sort of portal that seemingly linked to Traviere's home world. He rubbed his eyes in exhaustion and tried to lay back down, but couldn't close his eyes, because every time he did, all he saw was the monument standing over him, appearing more ominous with every close of his eyes. He started rolling around, trying to keep a thin blanket over him whilst doing so. His tossing and turning eventually woke up another person in the area with him, and she spoke in a soft, tired tone to him.

Meggy: *tiredly* Mario? What are you doing?

Mario ignores her and kept trying to force the images out of his head and it wasn't long for Meggy to look over to him and immediately got off the mattress she was lying on to kneel next to him, trying to comfort him.

Meggy: Hey, hey...it's okay. It was a dream, Red.

Mario: Ngh....mhmm...

Meggy: Mario, it's a dream. Wake up.

Mario sat up again, this time, being able to look around better. When his eyes met Meggy's, he didn't hesitate and leaned into her with his arms wrapped around her.

Meggy: Woah...Red. It's okay.

Mario: Why did it happen again?

Meggy: I don't know.